Easy-peasy

Rhona Lewis – 1954-2025 – Beloved wife and mother

Martha whispered the words before placing the flowers in the plastic holder, as she had done every afternoon at 3 p.m. sharp in her newfound ritual since her mother’s death the Sunday before.

Watching her breath condense in small clouds fading away in the afternoon mist, she wondered if Rhona had really been a beloved wife. The engraver had looked at her puzzledly after reading the sentence she had scrawled in an uncertain handwriting on the half‑filled form on his desk.

‘Just Beloved mother?‘ He’d asked, pushing his glasses upwards to his prominent nose bridge. ‘If we added also “wife”, it would sound better.’

Martha had given a non-committal shrug of the shoulders, bolting for the door before any of the tears that had been burning at the back of her eyelids could escape the tight leash of her willpower.

The truth was, she didn’t really know anything anymore.

For the longest time, it had been just her and her mother. Rhona and Martha.

And now, Martha was the only one left.

She pondered the implication while brushing a few dried leaves off the cold marble, exposing the beautiful pinkish veins lacing an irregular pattern around the letters.

The marble hue was one of the few things she had been absolutely certain of.

‘Pink,’ she’d declared in an unusually steady voice, thinking about her mother’s pink lace sofa cover – the one she and Martha had chosen together to “refresh” the living room after her father left. They had spent an afternoon clearing out his empty beer cans and bike magazines strewn all over the coffee table, and choosing pretty pink curtains and cushions to cover the brown leather armchairs he’d insisted on buying.

Her mother had always been able to make a happy memory out of anything, even a horrible thing like that.

And now –

As she stifled a sob and covered her quivering mouth with her hand, she heard footsteps approaching behind her.

She hurriedly rubbed her eyes and pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, hoping that whoever was coming would suddenly turn off towards the neighbouring graves.

Instead, the rhythmic crackle of trampled leaves grew louder, followed by the squeak of wheels bumping over uneven soil.

Unable to stop herself, Martha turned.

A plump, friendly-looking elderly lady in a tweed jacket and skirt was slowly coming forward, the heels of her sensible square-toed shoes crackled faintly on the gravel. She was pushing behind her a dark canvas shopping cart brimming with flowers; when one bunch wrapped in brown paper slipped, Martha rushed to catch it before it hit the ground.

‘Thank you, dear’ the woman gave her a warm smile and peered up at Martha’s face, adjusting her half-moon spectacles on her nose ‘They were actually for poor Rhona,’ she said.

Martha swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She muttered a few words of courtesy, but the lady didn’t seem to hear her at all.

She had knelt on the ground and was now arranging her colourful blossoms next to Martha’s plain daisies, chatting amiably as if they were the oldest of friends.

‘How lovely of you to bring flowers to your dear mum,’ she said brightly ‘Not many young people are in the habit nowadays.’

Martha hesitated. The ease with which the woman spoke of her mother made her skin prickle.

‘I myself,’ she was saying, ‘I come every Sunday like clockwork.’ She started rummaging through her cart, pulled out a bunch of yellow roses, shook her head and put it back ‘To make sure there are always fresh flowers for these dear, dear friends. And I certainly would want someone to do the same for poor Mrs Ellerby, when my time comes.’ She concluded, turning towards her and giving her a warm smile.

‘You are Mrs Ellerby?’ Martha gasped in sudden recognition. She didn’t need to continue with – the one who found her.

The woman nodded gravely. ‘Yes. I expect they told you everything at the morgue, didn’t they?’

Martha shuddered, burying her nose in the woollen layers of her scarf. She did not want to remember that dreadful phone call, the drive to the hospital in that smelly taxi, the sorrowful looks exchanged by the nurses as she approached her mother’s cubicle.

‘Thank you for visiting her that morning,’ Martha forced herself to murmur, ‘It was very kind of you.’

Mrs Ellerby beamed at her, ‘Oh, don’t even mention it, dear. I’m used to pop ‘round the neighbours from time to time. Put to use my good old nurse skills when they’re needed before I forget them.’ She chuckled softly. ‘They’ve come in handy plenty of times, what with all us folks living next to each other.’

Mrs Ellerby wheeled her cart a little to the left, next to a plain grey headstone.

Tom Brady – 1968-2025.

‘There. Blue hydrangeas for poor Tom,’ Mrs Ellerby said tenderly, unwrapping the flowers from their white glossy paper and fluffing them out on the spartan tombstone. ‘I don’t think he was really into flowers’ she continued conversationally while pulling out a few stray weeds creeping their way up the writing ‘But then again, men rarely are. And these were the most masculine I could think of, if you know what I mean.’

She let out a sigh, rising up again. ‘Dear old Tom. That love for the bottle was the death of him.’

Martha stood there, speechless, while Mrs Ellerby tottered around with her cart spilling with petals in every hue imaginable, not quite knowing what to do or what to say. She had never been in the presence of someone who spoke with such easy confidence about the dead.

‘And, of course, I couldn’t forget you, Queenie. She liked a pretty rose, Queenie did,’ Said Mrs Ellerby turning towards Martha while pulling out the brown, desiccated roses from the shiny flower holder and plonking a fresh bunch of blooms tied together with a matching ribbon.

‘It’s a shame, really, that she couldn’t tend to her garden anymore toward the end.’ She clucked her tongue, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Takes everything out of you, pancreatic cancer.’ Mrs Ellerby pressed on, still kneeling down beside the grave, snapping out rotten leaves off of the rose stems. ‘Her last day, she couldn’t even sit up, poor dear, and she was in a state about the roses. “The roses, the roses.” It was all she said until the very end.’

‘You were there for her too?’ Martha blurted out before she could stop herself. How perfectly insensitive of her. She bit her lower lip, already formulating an apology in her head.

Mrs Ellerby, though, didn’t seem bothered at all. ‘Oh, yes.’ She simply said, raising up and brushing off a few leaves and pebbles that had stuck on the hem of her skirt. ‘It was peaceful. Like your mother’s.’ She added in an afterthought, giving her a tender smile.

‘How- how was it?’ Martha found herself asking in a strangled voice, barely able to get the words out of her trembling lips. She cursed herself and took a deep breath.

To her utter disbelief, instead of answering, Mrs Ellerby came forward with her arms wide open, and wrapped her in a warm hug. She patted her lean back a couple of times, murmuring soothingly ‘There, there dear.’

Martha just stood there, arms dangling at her sides, wondering what an amusing sight this would seem from the outside, her waist enveloped in the plump arms of a white-haired elderly lady twice her age and half her height.

Mrs Ellerby must have sensed the tension building up in her muscles, because she abruptly loosened her grip, taking a step back and looking at her silently for a few moments.

‘Tell you what, dear,’ She said finally ‘This is not something to be discussed here.’ She stepped forward, taking her hand and rubbing it softly. ‘Why don’t you come at my place for a nice cup of tea? My cottage is right around the corner.’ Mrs Ellerby asked, peering curiously at her face, as if to gauge her reaction.

Martha stifled a laugh.

In the past months, she had struggled to let even a foot out of her flat to get the shopping, resorting to home deliveries during the worst days.

That’s why she almost startled herself when she simply nodded without a word.

Mrs Ellerby’s cottage was just a couple of minutes away from the cemetery, as promised.

They had walked side by side in companionable silence, the cart rattling softly on the uneven pavement, a faint smell of damp earth and chrysanthemums filling the air. When the gate of Mrs Ellerby’s cottage came into view — a puff of smoke reaching upwards from the homely chimney — Martha realised she hadn’t once thought of turning back.

Her home looked exactly like her, Martha thought, taking in the quilt pattern on the twin armchairs of the drawing room and the mantelpiece overflowing with china trinkets.

Cosy and warm, with just a touch of charming quirkiness.

‘Do sit down, dear.’ Mrs Ellerby was saying while pushing her cart behind the vane under the narrow staircase. ‘I’ll fetch us a nice cup of tea in no time.’

‘Let me help,’ Martha offered taking a few steps towards the kitchen.

‘Oh, no absolutely. You settle down nicely, I’ll bring the tea.’

Martha didn’t protest, and did as she was told. She nestled in the armchair facing the fireplace and pulled her scarf around her shoulder as if it were a shawl. Despite the small fire crackling happily away, she felt a few shivers run up and down her spine. It was an unusually cold autumn, and it would take a while to adjust to the indoor temperature.

‘You must have wondered how I knew who you were at the cemetery.’ Mrs Ellerby said out loud from the kitchen, her voice partially muffled by the clattering of pots and kettles.

Martha’s answer couldn’t come fast enough, because by the time she had risen from the armchair and walked towards the kitchen, Mrs Ellerby had already come out carrying a silver tray crammed with cups, saucers, biscuits and creamers.

‘These modern kettles!’ she exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief ‘I don’t know what kind of sorcery they use to build them, the water boils in seconds!’

She dumped the tray loudly on the dark coffee table between the two armchairs, the steaming water already in the patterned china cups with their teabags gently bobbing up and down in the darkening liquid.

Martha reached for one, but Mrs Ellerby hurriedly passed her the other.

‘Oh, no dear. That’s mine,’ she said apologetically, ‘I take mine without sugar. Must watch that sneaky little diabetes.’ She laughed and blew out a little steam before taking the first sip.

Martha obediently brought the cup to her lips, and grimaced at the way too sweet taste.

‘It must have been so hard on you, poor dear.’ Mrs Ellerby continued, placing her cup and saucer on the table ‘Your mother told me about you. Showed me photos of you every time I came over.’ She clucked her tongue, disapprovingly ‘She worried all the time. Said you kept to yourself up there in the city. No friends to speak of, no one special. I told her it was only a phase, but she fretted something dreadful.’

Martha stared into her tea, watching the spoon’s reflection blur.

‘Your mother passed away quietly’ Mrs Ellerby said right on cue, answering her silent question. ‘She was ready, poor soul. She had been ready for quite a long time.’ She sighed, folding her hands in her lap. ‘Parkinson’s is quite atrocious in the end. Quite tiring.’ She pressed on ‘One of those that take your dignity away with them.’ she peered at Martha.

Doing her best not to pull a face, Martha took another sip of the syrupy tea, nestling back in the soft quilted fabric of the armchair. The flames, dancing upwards in the fireplace, had softly warmed up the room. Martha felt herself relax, and, instinctively, she snuggled deeper into the armchair, pulling herself tighter in her scarf.

‘That’s right, my dear,’ Mrs Ellerby murmured softly, coming over and adjusting the fabric around her shoulders as her mother used to do when she tucked her in for the night. ‘Make yourself comfortable for a bit.’

‘How –’ her own voice sounded strange to her ears. Thick, slurred. She searched for words to finish her question, but couldn’t find any.

The empty cup slipped from her hand, rolling in a slow, silent arc on the patterned carpet.

‘I think she was quite grateful in the end, you know?’ Mrs Ellerby was whispering now, motherly rubbing Martha’s arm ‘In the end, they all are.’

Her voice was getting muffled and soft, as if dampened by the roar of the sea. Strange, thought Martha incoherently, we are so, so far from the sea.

‘Everyone should be grateful when pain is taken away,’ Mrs Ellerby was saying, tucking strands of Martha’s hair behind her ears. ‘Grateful as Queenie, who had pangs so sharp she would throw up.’

Martha felt her eyelids grow heavier with every passing breath. She blinked once. Then once again.

‘Or Tom, after he'd had one too many that night, and cried like a baby because he couldn’t stop.’

Each time her eyelids drooped close, it was getting harder and harder for Martha to reopen her eyes, trying to focus on the blurring lines of Mrs. Ellerby’s kind, concerned face.

‘Or your mother, my dear.’ Her voice was now nothing more than a murmur. ‘Who couldn’t hold anything anymore, neither up nor down, poor Rhona.’

Mrs. Ellerby adjusted her scarf around her shoulders once more, pulling it closer to her chin.

‘Or you, poor dear. Poor Martha, alone in the world, no-one to live for, nothing but sad thoughts to fill your days.’

Her eyes now fully closed, Martha was drifting away.

‘Imagine now, how nice it would be to live without pain.’ Mrs Ellerby’s words came and went in slow, rolling murmurs, like waves breaking somewhere far beyond reach. ‘How simple –‘

‘See how simple it is?’ was the last thing Martha heard. ‘Easy-peasy — as easy as going to sleep.’